Heidegger's hermeneutic phenomenology can be seen as a specific reduction of meaning to its temporal constitution . Temporality as the universal horizon of Being makes any transcendence and meaning beyond time impossible. Levinas opposes such reduction of sense to finitude and historicity for ethical reasons. However, in his attempt to overcome Heidegger's primacy of time and transcend its totality, he must look for a completely different conception of significance which goes hand in hand with a new, "diachronic" understanding of time.

Although Levinas’ “il y a” does not directly correspond to Heidegger’s conception of being, his criticism of Heidegger’s temporal ontology is nevertheless justified. With the reduction of every meaning (and being) to its temporal constitution, Heidegger excludes any possibility of transcendence beyond time. The problem of overcoming the radical finitude and historicity of meaning, which is ethically motivated, brings Levinas to the age-old question of metaphysics. However, taking Heidegger’s thought seriously, Levinas is forced to look for an entirely new understanding (...) of the metaphysical quest. (shrink)